Cape schools foundation awards grants totaling $9,784 to teachers

It's hard to stop the music in the classroom of music teacher Pam Dumey. But a check for $1,530 from the Cape Girardeau public schools foundation provided an unexpected interlude Monday morning.

Foundation officials served as a prize patrol, delivering balloons and poster-sized checks to help fund teaching projects at various schools in the district next school year.

In all, the foundation handed out 10 grants totaling $9,784. The grants will fund teaching projects that will impact 2,700 students, said foundation president Stacy Kinder.

"Our main goal is to look at innovative teaching," said Martha Zlokovich, who chairs the foundation's grant committee.

It's also a way for donations ultimately to help students, she said.

This is the second year of the foundation's grant program. The grants are designed to pay for materials and supplies for various teaching projects,

The 10 winning projects were chosen from among 21 applications.

A surprised Dumey said she'll use the money to buy a double steel drum. She titled her grant project "Heavy Metal Music" because the drums are heavy to carry.

"I am setting spelling rules to melodies and writing accompaniments for those," she said.

"They wanted us to teach reading across the curriculum," she said.

Dumey said the grants allow teachers to do extra academic projects.

"The school can afford basics, but for everything extra you have to find outside money," said Dumey.

One of her students told her he thought it was the famed "Publishers Clearinghouse" prize patrol.

Central Junior High School teacher Cathy Huskey was thrilled to win a $950 grant. "I got a grant," she said excitedly after the prize patrol greeted her in a hallway with an oversized check and colorful balloons.

Huskey heads up a junior high school committee that intends to bring in guest speakers to help teach students principles of good character in the classroom in an effort to reduce student behavior problems.

Other grant recipients:

* High school librarian Julia Jorgensen received $1,579 to provide information to minority students and their parents for planning life after high school.

* Sixth-grade teacher Dianna Valleroy received $1,200 to develop a hands-on approach to motivate students to develop research skills and learn about habitats and world geography.

* Clippard second-grade teachers Teresa Williams and Lyndora Hughes received $1,100 for a project to motivate second-graders to want to read at home by improving reading comprehension, as well as writing, listening and speaking skills.

* Seventh-grade teacher Helen Gibbar received a $1,000 grant to operate a science club to help at-risk seventh-grade girls achieve greater academic success in science classes.

* Art teacher Dennis Wilson received $890 to develop a monthly Friday evening arts program to provide a creative outlet for junior high school students.

* Fifth-grade teacher Tracy Haggerty received $745 to develop "Kid to Kid Publications" designed to develop a love of reading and writing for fifth-graders.

* Clippard Elementary School kindergarten teacher Dawn Eichholz received a $489 grant to provide backpacks that kindergarten students will get to take home three times a year. They will be filled with items that reflect what the students are learning in school and will encourage families to reinforce important concepts at home.

* Career and Technology Center teacher Libby Guilliams received $300 for a project to expose students to "real life" experiences and skills.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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